Update on the cat- he spent a couple days at the vet getting pumped full of fluids to try to get his kidneys to stabilize. He’s been home a few days, I have to bring him back tomorrow for more fluids and a check-up. He’s been eating wet food now but I’m worried he’s still not getting enough water. I have a fountain and several water bowls and I let him drink out of the bathroom sink if he wants too but I’m still worried that it’s not enough. Any suggestions?
New rant… we got a good amount of snow yesterday. I’m lucky that I live in an apartment complex that has a crew that clears the streets and sidewalks. They do a pretty good job, better than the city on the streets sometimes. They also plow the parking lots. We’re supposed to move our cars when the plows come through. I have no problem doing that, except when the plows come through at 2am like they did last night! By the time I woke up, realized what the racket was outside, put on pants boots and glasses and ran outside to move my car the plow crew had moved on. They also deposited a large pile of snow behind my car. And the one parking spot they did clear out now has my upstairs neighbor’s idiot boyfriend’s car illegally parked in it. If he’s still there in the morning I’m calling the office to tow his ass (this isn’t the first time).
On Friday night I ended a friendship with someone I’ve known since high school (30+ years). It’s a long and complicated story, but ultimately her self-centered immaturity led me to feel I had no other option – and, of course, she assigns me all of the blame. I’ll get past it soon enough, but I’m still feeling kind of annoyed this morning.
On Saturday I woke up to a vaguely metallic smell in the house. It was stronger when the heat was on, so I did some Googling and several different sites said that it could be due to failing components of an overworked furnace – which, if ignored, could maybe possibly start a fire. The furnace isn’t that old, but it struggles to keep my 1,000-sq-ft house warm whenever the outside temp goes below 40 so I thought maybe it *could *be overworked. And having lived through a fire as a small child I’m a little more paranoid about it than most, so I turned off the heat and called for emergency service. Turned out the furnace itself was fine, but it’s a good thing I made that call because SOMEONE LEFT THE USER MANUAL INSIDE AND IT HAD STARTED TO BURN. :mad: I’ve lived in this house for almost 5 years with no problem: my guess is that it had been left in a location where it was protected, but over time had shifted inside the furnace. I sent a picture of the charred manual to my property manager.
I was supposed to have a performance downtown yesterday evening (I’m a jazz singer), but it was cancelled – along with everything else in the DC area – because of the snow. It’ll be rescheduled, but meh.
And speaking of the snow, I went outside at around noon yesterday and spent 45 minutes shoveling my sidewalks and patio and the area behind my car. Three hours later, it was like I’d never gone out there at all. sigh I’ll be heading outside shortly to dig out for the second time. And there’s more snow in the forecast for this weekend.
Your furnace installers must have gone to the same school of installation as ours.
When we bought our (very old) house, the furnace needed replacing. It was done before we moved in so, new furnace=yay! in Canada. in January.
I’m passingly familiar with oil furnaces, husband is not (from the UK, they don’t have many of those).
I noticed that the blower (forced hot air) seemed to be cycling rather more often than I was used to and house was not so wonderfully warm, but very old drafty house, new furnace and what do I know. Bought blankets.
Husband said it was fine because new furnace.
My painfully helpful sister came to visit a few months later and asked if we’d changed the air filter on the furnace yet. We said no, new furnace blah blah. She would. not. let. it. go. Part of the reason, besides laziness, we hadn’t checked on the filter or the furnace was because it was in the very old and nasty cellar. The cellar that you could only access through a trap door onto a rickety stepladder. Also spiders.
But sister would. not. let. it. go. So finally husband agrees to check the filter and sister, of course, insisted on joining him. Did I mention she’s in her 70’s?
Down they go and “Where’s the filter in this furnace?”, says she.
“Dunno”, says he.
“Where’s the manual? It would tell us where the filter is”, says she.
“Dunno”, says he.
They figured out where the filter was and lo and behold, there was the manual; nicely sealed in plastic and centered on the filter; blocking roughly 90% of the air going through.
Furnace runs just fine now. Sister is even more annoying.
My condolences. I shoveled the driveway around 8:00 am Saturday (4+ inches of semi-wet), because the snow had almost stopped falling and we had people coming over for the game.
At 2:30, my wife went out with me and we removed the 2+ additional inches that had fallen after the snow started up again.
My manual is still in plastic, too; the burning plastic is what the furnace guy thinks caused the smell in the house (just paper would have smelled different).
Condolences back atcha.
When I shoveled yesterday, it was during a lull after which 8" had fallen (between 3pm Saturday and noon yesterday). I estimate that another 2-3" fell between 1pm and 10pm yesterday. I spent 1.5 hours outside this morning: most of that time was spent clearing off my car (and shoveling through “snowplow mountain” at the base of my driveway), which I hadn’t touched at all yesterday. But I’m lucky/glad that (a) the snow is light, (b) the sun is out at the moment, and (c) I should be able to get to my business meeting near Baltimore tomorrow morning.
Just got an email that started “Hi Professor, Mind If I Stop By?” and continued “It’s Leon. Will you be in your office on Monday, Professor?”
At first that sounded like a (dim) student, but I did some googling and discovered this guy buys used textbooks. ::sigh::
If I wasn’t sure it’d get me on a special “Got A Live One” list, I’d reply. With something like:
First of all, “Leon”, I’m not a Professor, in fact, we don’t have a single professor in our entire school. You obviously didn’t do your homework, did you? Because you’d also know that (are you sitting down?) we don’t use textbooks. ALL our courses use electronic texts.
And when you say ‘I already work with several faculty at your school!’ I’ve gotta say NAME TWO.
Leon, there are ways to make a living with more integrity. For instance, every single job on the planet that isn’t White House Press Secretary. I strongly urge you to learn to run a deep fryer, or sign up for experimental drug trials. Anything that won’t require you to lie for money, and sap your soul like this.
Let me know if you need a reference, and hey, good luck in your next job!
‘Professor’ Digbino
We have a new phenomenon occurring up here in the frozen Atlantic north. We get a crap-ton of snow which turns to ice pellets and then rain before our storms end. It makes for splendid shoveling. Each shovelfull is solid ice and water.
I used to not worry about it too much since I had a large able bodied husband to deal with it, as well as a guy to plow the driveway and a snowblower for the worst of it. Sadly, my handy husband has developed heart problems and will no longer be shoveling or snow-blowing.
The guy still plows the driveway but the shoveling is now my problem.
You could suggest to “Leon” that he might have a promising career as an IRS “representative”, threatening people with arrest and prosecution if they failed to immediately pay their “back taxes”, which fortunately they would be able to pay conveniently online via iTunes or Amazon gift certificates. It’s now well known that the tax agencies of the federal governments of many major nations accept iTunes and Amazon gift certificates as a form of payment for overdue taxes. The only downside for “Leon” is that he would have to move to Punjab, where for some reason most of these federal tax agencies seem to have their call centers.
I once got a call like that from somewhere in the vicinity of Punjab, and, being in a feisty mood at the time, I suggested to the caller that even if he lacked basic skills of any kind, he could probably still find an honest job somewhere and work his way up to being a somewhat decent person who could look at himself in the mirror without shame. I believe I also cast aspersions on his mother, and her shameful role in bringing him into this world. Then I hung up, and the guy was so pissed that he called me back again, all the way from Punjab, with the same fake caller ID. I ignored it.
No snow in the great outback of Southern Arkansas. But damn it’s cold. And the state wide Weather guy ( who I’m sure is an alien from outer space) spent most of his newscast talking about the lunar eclipse that’s coming Sunday. Big deal, dude. I’d rather know the forecast.
This has been a very expensive week. Last Monday, I went in for an oil change and they told me I also needed new tires, as mine were very worn (they had warned me this was probably coming at my last oil change). And while they were changing my tires, they really should do an alignment. Just under $1000. Once they were far enough into that that I couldn’t reverse it, they came back to tell me I needed new brakes and a brake fluid flush. They didn’t have parts, but could order them and have me come back today. Another $1700 for that. On Thursday morning, everything in the freezer was soft and the refrigerator was warm. My husband and I went to Best Buy and made an emergency refrigerator purchase for $2600, plus threw away goodness knows how much food value. We have been living out of an ice chest since Thursday.
Best Buy was supposed to deliver the refrigerator between 1:30 and 3:30 today. They called at 12:45 and left a message that our window had been bumped to 4:30-5:30, and it might get bumped later still. They left me a callback number with too many digits and an area code in British Columbia. My son forgot to stay at school for a new club meeting today that he really wanted to go to, and he is going to be very unhappy when he comes home and I tell him he missed it. I yelled at my other son for not hanging up his coat when he got home while I was picking up my car, and felt like shit.
Oh, and in followup to post #70, if anyone is interested in seeing a picture of some of these hardworking “tax collection agents”, there’s one here of a bunch of them after their arrest following a police raid in India (scroll down). They look remarkably like similar pictures I’ve seen of Nigerian princes after their arrest, those seeking to transfer vast wealth to western beneficiaries.
Here at the bottom of the world, I’ve a different weather complaint - it’s bloody forking hot!
Central Victoria, Australia. Yesterday, it was 40c/104f, today it’ll be 43c/109f, tomorrow 44c/111f, and then it’ll “cool back down” to 40c the day after. It doesn’t even cool off that much at night - low to mid 20s centigrade (70-75f) over the next few days. sigh At least it’s not humid. Still better than central Florida.
No, not really. He’s never been much into people food. He does like Popsicles but that’s about it. I did finally get him to drink out of a bowl that I put in the bathtub. Still worried about him, he’s not eating as much again.
Yeah, a couple of years ago I bitched mightily about the state taking time to replace a bridge in the boonies of Franklin County with a larger, more elevated version. What a waste of money, I thought!
The little creek that runs under the bridge has now become a small river due to all the rain, and has pretty much stayed at the same height as the old roadbed. I’ll give the state credit for that one.
A few years back Mom and I went to Córdoba at the beginning of May, to see the decorated patios. We went to visit Medina Azahara and the water vendor was talking to the bus driver; when they said the weather was still cool, Mom expressed her surprise “we’re breaking 36ºC every day!” “yes, but it still goes below 36ºC at night :D”
So, message from Córdoba la blanca: if it goes below 36ºC at night it counts as cool, stop complaining!
Yeah, Nava, in April, 1972, Barcelona was bloody cold. A month later Valencia and Palma (de Mallorca) were both bloody boiling. That’s okay, because the sangria was mighty tasty (not to mention more than effective).
I’m having surgery on my wrist this Friday. It’s for condition called de Quervain’s tenosynovitis. Other treatments have failed. Just what I need… medical expenses.
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